Laminates are popular in various applications (e.g. building materials, panels for automotive applications, large scale industrial parts). In making laminated materials, it is common to use adhesive to join the lamina. However, adhesives have many known deficiencies. They are expensive, messy and emit noxious fumes. Many typical adhesives used for laminating heterogeneous materials are also prone to failure or shattering/cracking under various stresses (temperature, bending, cutting). Further, adhesives are undesirable from an environmental point of view as they foul the underlying materials and prevent recycling or reclamation of the lamina. It would be desirable to avoid the use of adhesive without compromising the strength of the laminate.
Mechanical attachment in individual parts (e.g. brake backing plate to friction material) has become known and highly successful, but the process is used on relatively thick steel in heavy individual plates, not on a continuous larger scale material that could be used for making adhesive-less laminated materials, including laminates of thinner materials.
Further, at present, individual parts are limited in terms of the size and shape variations that are possible. In order to provide mechanical attachment on individual parts, the blanks are typically fed from a magazine in which they all must be of a uniform size and outline. This is not convenient for larger scale applications, or one-off sizes, or custom lengths, which may be desirable for use in building materials, in particular.
It would be desirable to have a continuous process for preparing a textured (mechanical-attachment-ready) surface on bulk material.